


Distance and Perspective

by fakingg_sanity



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, M/M, Team Torchwood - Freeform, references to TW book: pack animals, season 2 pre reset
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-09
Updated: 2018-08-08
Packaged: 2019-06-07 19:33:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15226320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fakingg_sanity/pseuds/fakingg_sanity
Summary: With distance comes a little perspective. And sometimes thats all you need.A series of unusual readings have the team puzzled, can they solve the case before someone ends up hurt, lost, or dead? Jack ends up confronting a situation he would rather be left in the past, and a confused journalist just wants to know what happened to his friend.Old school Torchwood solving an old school case.pre-reset, a few side references to the Torchwood Novel 'Pack Animals', but ultimately set before those events take place. So no spoilers.





	1. Chapter 1

Jack left the church in a huff. He was ready for bed which, for Jack, was really saying something. They’d picked up a few small readings in around the area, so the team had dispersed to investigate. Jack had left the largest of the 4 readings to Owen and Ianto, with Gwen and Tosh each taking their own, Jack had moved towards the last reading that had come through, positioned at a church off St Marys Street. The church was old, as was everything in Cardiff. Although not to Jack. If he thought hard enough he could probably remember when it was built. But best not to jump down that particular rabbit hole. 

After 10 minutes rooting around and a rather uncomfortable chat with a minister about his sins, Jack had decided there was nothing to be seen, and promptly left. The cool breeze of Cardiff in summer time hit Jack as he stepped out, he breathed it in. He didn’t get enough of it really, cold air… living in an underground bunker did that to you. Just as he was about to head back towards the SUV a cool voice appeared in his ear. 

“Jack.”

Jack tapped his comm unit and smiled. Nothing brought a grin to his face quicker than Ianto Jones saying his name.

“Ianto. What you got?”

He could hear Ianto’s footsteps though the call as he undoubtedly followed Owen out of the site. Although it wasn’t all follow with Ianto anymore, so maybe Jack was wrong. He certainly liked this new assertive version of the Welshman, and not only during work hours. 

“Nothing. Residual rift energy lurking about, as always. But no more than a few terrified pigeons.” 

“Did you take statements?”

“Yeah, didn’t get much though, they all flocked over at once.” Jack heard Owen’s groan through Ianto’s comm and laughed. “what about you? Anything at the church?”

Jack shook his head even though Ianto couldn’t see him.

“Nah. Nothing but an overly judgemental priest.”

“Oh yes?”

“Seemed intent on telling me all the ways I’m sinning,”

“If only he knew…” 

The amusement was clear in Ianto’s voice.

“And you do, do you?”

“I think I have some…vague idea…”

Jack sucked in a breath and exhaled slowly, the grin taking up residence on him face would never leave at this rate. 

“Ianto Jones… what am I going to do with you…?”

“I’m sure you’ll think of something.”

Suddenly another voice appeared in Jack’s head. Owen.

“Flirt on your own time, you two. We’re working. Has anyone heard from the girls?”

Jack laughed to himself and set off to find the car. 

“I’ll drive round to them, pick you two up on the way back. I’ll give them a ring in a sec.”

Jack disconnected as he reached the SUV and went to pull open the door when a sickeningly familiar and deeply annoying face popped round the corner.   
“Oh God…” Jack hurried to get in the car, but it was too late, he’d been seen. 

David Brigstocke; journalist, academic, stalker and damn right pain in the arse, was running towards him with his arm outstretched. 

“Jack! Jack!”

Jack sighed and squared his shoulders. 

“David. Always a nightmare. What can I do for you?”

“Just wondering if I can ask you some questions.”

“The usual then.”

“And your answer?”

“The usual. No.” Jack got in the car and slammed the door closed. Before he could drive off David had literally jumped in front of the car. 

“I just want five minutes, Jack. Please.” His voice was muffled through the front window, but Jack could see the desperation in his eyes. Jack shook his head and started to reverse. “JACK! JACK!” Jack turned around and was about to dive the other way when David ran to the window. “I just want to know what happened to my friend. I know you know. Please, Jack.” 

Jack wound down his window with a resolute face. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” And with that he was off, leaving David in the dust of the SUV. 

\---------- 

“So that was a waste of fucking time.”

Owen never held out. They were sat round the table in the boardroom feeling a little bit useless after not finding anything at the reading sights. Ianto came on with coffee and the 4 of them raced to get their cups. 

“God, Ianto I would do anything for you to live in my house and just make me endless cups of coffee.” Gwen often said things like this as Ianto was handing out drinks. Jack’s favourite was ‘Ianto, I don’t know if I want to shag you right here or chain you to the coffee machine and never let you go.’ To which Jack had helpfully replied with a wink, ‘how bout both?’ sending the whole room into groans of annoyance. 

“I try my best, although I can’t be showing favourites now can I?” He made a face at Jack, who stared back at him, open mouthed. “So what were these signals about then?”

He sat down, as did the others, all of them getting comfortable. Jack sat at the head of the table, as always, with a look of thunder across his face. 

“I don’t know. It’s strange none of us found anything. Even for a spike that small, there should have been something at least at one of the locations. Not one lost piece of tech, or missing part, heck not even a drop of sweat. How does that happen.” He was looking at Tosh. Tosh was looking at her laptop. “Tosh?” 

She finally looked up, she clearly hadn’t been listening to anything anyone had been saying for the past 15 minutes. 

“What’s that sorry?” 

Jack smiled affectionately. 

“Any ideas about these signals?”

She blushed slightly but stood up nonetheless. She pressed a button and the display behind Jack lit up with a graphic, clearly mirroring whatever Tosh had been working at on her laptop. Jack half turned then moved to the chair next to Ianto to get a better view. 

“So, we remember what the readings were.” She pressed again and a new graphic appeared, the readings they had followed out that morning. “They’re standard, low level rift spikes. Not reading high enough for anything too big to come through, but certainly mirrors what we would expect from a tech retrieval, or space debris, yes?”

They all nodded. Tosh continued.

“Well, I’ve been crunching some numbers and I worked out the average size of a tech retrieval rift spike, so the kind of thing we would most expect to see and this is what it looks like.” She changed the screen again and a side by side comparison of the mornings readings vs her average. They were identical.

“They’re exactly the same, Tosh.” 

“Yes.” Tosh pointed her pen at Gwen, smiling. Ianto smiled, he loved it when Tosh got like this, she was like a professor lecturing enthusiastic, if a little thick, kids. “they are exactly the same, Gwen. There isn’t a single micro amount of energy’s difference. While the average is accurate to the kind of reading we would expect to see, there is always a small amount of variation. This reading, the average – all 4 of the locations we went to this morning – have the ‘perfect average’. Which is deeply unusual, in fact basically impossible. For 4 different locations to simultaneously have the exact same reading at the exact same time.”

Ianto was nodding along. However, Gwen and Owen looked more than a little lost. 

“What are you trying to say Tosh?” Owen sounded impatient.

Tosh sat down again, the comparison image still on screen. She shrugged. 

“I can’t be sure, but knowing what we know about the rift, knowing what we know about the patterns it exudes… and the nature of this reading… it almost seems like these readings have been planted.”

They all stared at her. 

“A perfect average doesn’t exist. Not with the rift. Its too unpredictable. So having this kind of… traditionally ‘perfect’ reading appear, its unusual and troubling. Coupled with the fact that none of us found anything at our sites. I think they were engineered. I think we were drawn out on a tech retrieval that never existed.”

“Why would someone-” Gwen started,

“-or something…” jack Interrupted

“Do that?” Gwen finished, with a side glance to Jack. 

Ianto looked worried. “Maybe they wanted us out of the hub for a couple of hours. To get in, to observe us…” 

Immediately the 5 of them begun looking around the room, looking for something, anything… Tosh perked up suddenly, as if an idea had slapped her in the back of the head. She started typing furiously, the mirrored screen on the wall showing the others what she was doing. Not that they understood… well, apart from Ianto. 

“Why are you pulling those up, Tosh?” Ianto asked as several file numbers he recognised came across the screen. “Those cases have been closed for months.”

“Look at the reading Ianto.” Tosh didn’t look up from the computer. “closed cases are one thing, but look at the reading…”

Ianto’s eyes flew around the monitor for a few seconds until he breathed out. His eyebrows almost hit the ceiling.

“Ohhhhh… Oh fuck…”

Owen, Gwen and Jack were all looking at the screen, the jumbles of words and numbers meaning absolutely nothing. Owen was growing impatient. 

“Right. Can we reschedule geeks club for another night, we have case here and you two are going on like Kirk and Spock. Talk sodding English or piss off.”

Ianto shook his head, but translated. 

“The readings… a backlog of nearly 4 months where every small tech retrieval we have had has that exact reading. That exact reading, Owen. In however many years of Torchwood no reading from the rift has ever been identical with another, right Tosh?”

She was still typing. 

“They are all minutely different, even the ones that look the same. I can’t believe its taken me this long to notice.”

“So sometimes we find stuff, sometimes we don’t, but for months a reading has been coming through that cant really exist… So it can’t be real.”

“I have a bad feeling about this, guys…” Gwen was looking nervous. She looked at Jack, but Jack’s eyes were glazed over.

“I’m thinking we’re under attack here.” Jack’s voice was low and dangerous.

“A bloody slow one…”

“But think about it Owen. Every few weeks this reading comes, we go out and whoever they may be watches us, they’re collecting data, maybe they’re using the Hub. We can’t know yet. Tosh, check CCTV.”

“Who uses the same reading though? We would’ve never picked up on it if they’d used different readings.”

“Maybe they’re not that smart.”

“Well then who would want to stalk us? Someone we’ve pissed off?”

Jack smiled grimly. 

“Well, that narrows the list down to about half the galaxy…”

“fuck…”

Owen’s head hit the table with a thud, and they all looked at each other, trying to process everything they had just learnt.


	2. Chapter 2

“I can try to do what I can, but until another reading comes through I won’t be able to track where it might be coming from. Sorry Jack, but I don’t know what else I can do.”

They were in the main part of the hub, and after several hours brainstorming and talking themselves round in circles, they were no closer to finding anything out about the mystery readings. Tosh had been working harder than anyone, she and Ianto had been cross referencing CCTV with case files and rift readings. The others tried to think who could be trying to set them up, as well as theorize any other possibilities for what was happening. Jack let out a long sigh. 

“Well. I don’t think we’re going to get anywhere else tonight. Might as well head home. Its nearly 10 anyway. Tosh, you take some equipment back with you and keep monitoring, if anything comes through let us know. The rest of you, phones on loud.” They all nodded. “Okay, get out of here. Be back tomorrow, 7am.”

Owen and Gwen grabbed their things and were out the door saying half hearted goodbyes before Jack could change his mind. Tosh didn’t move, still watching the graphics on her computer change slowly, every few seconds pressing another key or clicking her mouse. Ianto was at his desk too, typing slowly and clicking between CCTV channels. Jack huffed. 

“Did you two not hear me? Get out of here. Have an evening. Order dinner, eat in front of your telly’s and get a good night’s rest. That’s an order.” 

Jack heard Tosh’s sigh of annoyance as she swivelled her chair. 

“Sorry, Jack. I’m just feeling a bit useless here… What if I can’t figure out what’s going on?”

Jack walked to her and cupped her cheek gently.

“Tosh, you are many things, useless ain't one of them. You’ve never let me down before, and you sure as hell won’t now. I trust you. But you’ll never get anything done if you don’t get some sleep. So go home.”

Toshiko nodded and grabbed her bag. She reached up and kissed Jack on the cheek, she shouted a goodbye to Ianto then made her way out of the hub through the cog door. Jack watched her go with an affectionate smile plastered onto his face. She really was something wonderful. A lot like someone else he knew. Jack cast his gaze across to where Ianto was still working. He shook his head and let it drop to his chest. Ianto Jones… now he was something else entirely. A man so dedicated and so loyal that it was almost impossible to draw him away from his work. Of course, Jack knew one particular way that had certainly proved effective in the past. 

The lips on Ianto’s neck made him jump. He relaxed as he heard that familiar chuckle behind him. 

“You gonna stop working anytime soon?”

Ianto turned in Jack’s embrace to face him. 

“We have a massive case on Jack, this is really serious.”

“I know.”

“So can you let me just finish this.”

“No. You won’t be any use to anyone if you’re exhausted. I’m ordering you to go home and get some sleep. I’m your commanding officer, if you deliberately ignore my direct orders I can suspend you without pay.”

Ianto laughed. He turned back to the computer. 

“You can, but you wont. Because suspending me means no coffee and certainly none of the other things you get from me on a daily basis.” 

He started typing again. Jack frowned. Then decided on a drastic final measure. He squatted gracefully and with ease picked Ianto up from under his bum. Ianto let out a girlish scream and pulled at Jack’s arms, who calmly started walking towards his office. 

“Let go of me Jack, I’m serious. Put me down! I didn’t close down my work!”

Jack ignored him until they were inside his office, where he dumped Ianto on the desk and smugly looked down at the dishevelled man. 

“You were ignoring me. So I got your attention, if anything you brought this on yourself. Now get downstairs. I’ll close up out here.” 

Ianto pouted but relented. He descended into Jack’s bunker while Jack whizzed around the hub checking and double checking the locks. He set all alerts to his wrist strap and made his way through the hole in his office floor a short few minutes after Ianto.

Later in Jack’s bed, they lay sweaty and satisfied catching their breath. Ianto half sat up and leaned on one elbow. He looked down at Jack warmly. 

“I thought you were going send me home…”

Jack smiled and sat up to gently kiss Ianto’s lips. 

“Well… I figured that was never going to happen. So I decided to have some fun with it.”

“Of course…”

They lay back down, a tight fit in Jack’s ridiculously small bed. The only sounds: their calming breathing and the ticking of Ianto’s watch on the bedside table. Jack was just starting to fall into a deep sleep when Ianto’s voice brought him back to consciousness. 

“Do think its going to be okay…?”

It was so soft Jack could have missed it. He wasn’t sure if Ianto was talking to himself or expecting Jack to answer. Either way, Jack blinked open his eyes and stared into the dark. 

“We’re always okay.”

“Not always…”

Jack lifted his arm and let Ianto curl closer. 

“It’s going to be okay, I promise.”

They both knew it was an empty sentiment, but that’s all they needed. Jack could never guarantee any of their safety, only his own. But tonight, Ianto was happy to fall asleep in ignorance, in the safety of Jack’s arms. 

\-- -- -- 

“Someone had fun last night.” Owen was always a bastard, it just seemed to really shine through in the mornings, especially ones that began at 7am. He strode through the cog door holding his rucksack and a full bottle of water. “Same suit is that Ianto?”

Owen grinned wolfishly. Ianto rolled his eyes. It was true, he’d stayed the night before, and had run out of spare suits at the hub since the ‘alien goo all over the autopsy room and guess who had to clean it up’ incident. 

“Do you want coffee or not?”

“Of course.”

“Then it’s in your best interest to kindly shut up.”

Owen laughed. 

“Oooh excuse me. Someone isn’t that cheery this morning. Got something up your backside? Oh wait – that was last night!” Owen started to laugh profusely at this. Ianto did not. Jack watched from his office with a half-smile. Owen was a knob, but Ianto could hold his own just fine. You just had to wait. Tosh and Gwen arrived shortly after Owen and Ianto begun handing out the morning coffees. Jack didn’t miss the look of disgust on Owen’s face as he took a sip of his coffee and realised it was decaf. The others held back laughter at Owen’s curses. Ianto was grinning. 

“Right kids. Sorry for the early morning, but you know we have something big on today. Tosh I want you running as many scans and tests as you can to find out where that reading is originating from. Owen and Gwen, you’re on research. Is there anyone we’ve pissed off that’s recently returned to the area, cross reference CCTV images of the bay and surrounding areas with some lists of known adversaries. Ianto, help Tosh with anything she needs, you need to be her second brain as youre the only one here that can remotely keep up with her-”

“-Part 2!: The geeks strike back!” 

Gwen hit Owen on the arm. 

“I’m going to see ring Martha and see if she can shed any light on anything, see if UNIT has any insights. Right. Let’s go.”

Jack returned to his office and the team sprang into action. Ianto took up his seat next to Tosh’s station and began typing, the two of them mumbling to each other in undistinguishable technobabble. Owen rolled his eyes into his cup but took a sip anyway, not wanting to further annoy Ianto and scupper any chances of real coffee later. He and Gwen took to their stations and began work too. They worked like a well-oiled machine these days. It took a lot of mistakes and a lot of arguments, but they’d settled into an almost perfect working unit. 

After a quiet morning working at their stations, there was a weevil sighting that Gwen and Jack dealt with. Once they were back Ianto ordered lunch, sandwiches and snacks because according to Jack they were eating far too much takeaway to be healthy. By 2pm they were back at work in full swing. 

Owen and Gwen weren’t having much luck in cross referencing so left the program running while they went out to scan the area for any alien technologies and radiation that may be lingering near the torchwood base. UNIT had been useless. Jack had told Ianto that Martha didn’t know the significance of the rift pumping out identical readings so couldn’t really offer much insight. Jack left that and started to catch up on paper work in his office. Ianto and Tosh however were having much more luck. They’d narrowed their search and eliminated certain technologies of being able to plant the readings in the Torchwood system. When Gwen and Owen returned they weren’t happy. 

“2 hours we spent out there scanning. And nothing. No alien technologies that we can detect the signals of are being used in this area or within about 10 square miles. I’m starting to think this is all a coincidence.”

He and Gwen thumped down on the sofa. Tosh continued to type but Ianto turned in his chair slowly. 

“Hey… wait a second… that’s a thought.”

Tosh’s typing halted and Jack came out of his office. 

“What is?”

“We can’t detect any alien technologies that could be doing this… well maybe we’re barking up the wrong tree. Maybe its not alien at all. Maybe it’s human?”

Just as Ianto said that, a shrill noise filled the hub and Tosh span back round to her station. 

“We have the signal. Its two miles east.”

Jack was already running. He, Gwen and Owen were out the door without a word. Ianto almost laughed. 

“I guess we’re coordinating then…”

Tosh smiled up at him.

“Well, we’re the only ones who understand what’s going on, while the signal is active get typing. See if you can track it. Interesting theory about it behind human tech. I’ll add that to the scan, maybe we’ll have a hit.”

Ianto started on his computer, the screens twisting and changing every time he called up a new program. Jack voice filled the hub through the comm system. 

“We’re here. Nothings come through. Anything on your end?”

“The signals still active. Give us a second.”

Tosh was typing so fast her fingers were blurring. Ianto wasn’t looking at her, he was staring at his screen, his eyes starting to water from forgetting to blink. He felt like he was chasing smoke, every time he got close it slipped through his fingers. Until…

“Ahah!”

“What? Have you got it?”

Jack was yelling. 

“One second…”

Ianto kept typing, he mirrored his screen with Tosh so she could work on it too. 

“It’s definitely human…” Tosh sounded strained, she was sweating too. 

“And its close. It’s like someone’s hacking us… I don’t understand how this is happening?”

“Shit.” Tosh rarely swore. So Jack knew it was bad. 

“What?”

“We’ve lost it. Damn it. We were so close. We have an area though. And we know for sure its human technology doing this. You don’t get those kind of signals from alien tech.”

“We’ll head back.”

Jack cut off the line. Tosh glanced over to Ianto, he was sweating too, the top of his head shiny. His cheeks were slightly red and she could see he was frustrated. 

“We did good there. One more signal and we can probably pinpoint it.”

Ianto was quiet. 

“Ianto?”

“How were we hacked? Torchwood has some of the best cyber security in the world? Its impenetrable, you know this, you designed a lot of what we use nowadays. How can anyone know the system well enough to get in, using human tech as well…”

The thought fell into their heads almost simultaneously. 

“No way…”

“It can’t be…”


	3. Chapter 3

“We’ll head back.” 

Jack disconnected the comm and breathed out a heavy sigh. Owen and Gwen were with him, looking equally pissed off and worried. 

“What now?” Owen was stressed about all of this, as a scientist he was desperate to solve this mystery but as a man he was getting increasingly frustrated at their lack of progress. 

“Well, Ianto and Tosh think they have something. They’re working on it anyway. So let’s go back to the hub and see what they’ve got. Gwen, get a couple more readings before we leave.”

Gwen lingered at the site while Owen and Jack stomped back to the SUV which was parked a few minutes walk away. As they approached it, someone was waiting for them.

“oh Jack. Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack…”

“Oh God. Not this again David. We have a job to do.”

David Brigstocke was casually leaning on the drivers side of the SUV, he had an open file in his hand and what was clearly a voice recorder sticking out of his top pocket. 

“So do I, that’s kind of the point.”

“Well, there’s no interesting article here. Move along.”

“Jack I couldn’t disagree more. The people of Cardiff know all about the big flash SUV that drives around at night, can get away with speeding and parks in the weirdest places for the longest amounts of time. They know the word Torchwood. Know it means secrets. I think they’d love to know what really goes on. It’s an itch they don’t know needs scratching, and if I gave them the means, they would be all over it.”

David had a dangerous tone to his voice, Jack took a deep, calming breath. 

“Well that all sounds lovely. Sorry I can’t be more help.”

Jack and Owen made a move for the doors of the SUV. David intercepted them and stared deep into Jack’s eyes. 

“Okay, so maybe my intentions aren’t all to do with liberating the people of Cardiff.”

“… Your friend, I don’t know anything about what happened.”

“I know you do!”

Jack was getting really pissed off now. Owen was behind him, ready to take David down if need be. 

“How’s that then?”

“The last number he called, the day he went missing, was yours Jack. You were the last person he spoke to before he disappeared.” David’s voice broke, and the tears started to come down his face. “You know why he left. Something you said to him made him leave. I don’t know why he called you, but I know it was maybe the last thing he ever did. So: Where. Is. Cameron. Davis!?”   
“What?”

Gwen rounded the corner and saw the scene in front of her. Jack’s head whipped around at the sound of her voice, then turned back to look at Owen who was giving him a ‘oh this is bad’ look. 

“Gwen, Owen, get in the car.”

“but Jack-”

“Get. In. The. Car.”

They did as they were told. Jack was holding David by the shirt collar. His teeth were locked together, and when he spoke he almost growled. 

“I don’t know what happened to your friend. I don’t even know the name. Now it’s really in your best interest to stop stalking us. Because sooner or later you’re going to end up in jail. Because maybe someone sent in an anonymous tip and maybe the police found a whole load of dead bodies in your kitchen. You wouldn’t like that to happen, would you?”

“Is that a threat, Jack?”

“You bet your sweet ass it is.”

Jack pulled the voice recorder out of David’s pocket, dropped it on the ground and broke it with his foot, smashing the device to pieces. They drove off in silence, leaving a shell shocked David Brigstocke among the pieces of his broken heart. 

_

“But jack-”

“No Gwen.”

Jack, Owen and Gwen marched through the cog door to the song of blaring alarms and shouted arguments. 

“But he said-”

“I know what he said, I was there. And we’re not having this conversation anymore.”

Tosh and Ianto were sat at Tosh’s station looking worried. 

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing Tosh, did you find anything?”

Tosh looked to Owen, who shrugged. He was clearly tired of both Gwen and Jack’s arguing. And he would tell them later. Meanwhile Ianto was staring at Jack, a look of absolute thunder on his face. Ianto was a patient man, but as always it seemed, Jack’s past kept biting them in the arse, and if this was going to be another danger to them, then he was sure as hell going to get to the bottom of it. 

“Jack?” Jack turned to him. “What happened while you were out?”

Jack sighed dramatically.

“It’s not important. You said you might have something on the phone. What’s going on with these readings.”

Ianto didn’t answer, clearly wanting answers from Jack but not willing to start a full blown argument in the middle of the hub. Tosh stepped in. 

“Well, while you guys were out, we were looking at all the different possibilities and we think we have a theory. It’s a bit out there.”

“I was saying that the way the reading was coming through, it was like we were being hacked, so we looked into that.”

“But our security systems are so advanced, there’s only two ways that could happen. 1: you’re a genius, even more so than me. Which is unlikely.”

Owen snorted.

“Or 2” Ianto continued, “You know the inner workings of Torchwood and our security systems.”

Jack scrubbed a hand down his face. 

“What exactly are you two saying?”

Tosh and Ianto looked at each other. 

“We think its an inside job.”

_

A little while later, they were sat round the boardroom table with coffee and biscuits in hand supplied by Ianto. Jack was at the head of the table, tapping his hand on the desk. 

“An inside job…” Jack was mumbling. Ianto and Tosh felt like they were on trial. But answered anyway. 

“it’s not the only possible explanation but it’s the most plausible one.”

“By inside, I hope you’re not suggesting one of us did it. Because none of us are that smart.”

“No, Owen. We’re not suggesting that at all. We were actually thinking it might be someone who worked for Torchwood one. Ianto has got a list of all the living survivors from the battle and we’re looking through it now.”

Ianto handed out sheets of paper with several names down it.

“From the battle there were 28 survivors. Since then 9 of them have committed suicide, 1 was killed in a knife fight, 2 died in other circumstances…” He looked down at the page briefly, no one said anything, knowing that this was a particularly difficult topic for Ianto to discuss. “Majority of those remaining have gone back to civilian life, and are largely adapting quite well. The last remaining 6, including myself, have gone into government work. Mostly UNIT though. I’m the only one crazy enough to still work for Torchwood.”

Ianto offered a small smile to show that he was mostly joking. Owen huffed out a laugh. 

“The only other option is Archie’s lot in Scotland.” Gwen suggested. 

Jack shook his head.

“Archie wouldn’t orchestrate something like this. And he only has 2 people on his team. He would have left us know if one of his people went AWOL as well. Canary Wharf is our best option if we’re going an ‘inside job’ route. Gwen and Owen, keep investigating other possibilities now, while we look into this T1 angle.” 

Gwen and Owen stood up and walked towards the main hub. Ianto had gone quiet after he’d given his findings, obviously struggling with the memories associated. Tosh stood and gathered her stuff. 

“I’ll start a trace again, see if I can find anyone locally who might be using Torchwood adapted tech to hack our systems. If it is something who knows about mainframe it should be quite easy to find.”

She left the room, leaving Ianto and Jack alone. Ianto got out of his chair and began cleaning up the mugs and plates. Jack was watching him. 

“You okay?”

“Fine, sir.”

Ianto’s voice was cold, indicating the opposite. He continued to clean.

“Ianto.”

Jack’s voice was soft, he didn’t want to scare Ianto off. At these moments the younger man was more like a skittish woodland creature. 

“I said I’m fine, okay?”

Jack held up his hands. 

“Okay…” He stood and walked over to where Ianto was stacking plates. His hands were shaking. “But if you’re not, you can tell me. Tosh and I can take over research on the survivors and you can go help Owen and Gwen. You don’t have to force yourself to relive this.”

Ianto’s movements halted and he turned to Jack. 

“It was over 18 months ago, Jack. It’s fine. Why do you care anyway? Torchwood one meant nothing to you, you hated Yvonne and you hated everything it stood for. You shouldn’t give a crap.”

Ianto rarely snapped, and Jack was taken aback by the harshness in his voice. Jack slowly moved closer to Ianto and smoothed his hands down his arms. 

“Its true, I never cared about Yvonne or her work. But it doesn’t change the fact that 100s of innocent people died that day, people who worked for Torchwood, who were just doing a job. The people there weren’t evil, weren’t criminals, they were victims. You were a victim to her crimes.”

“She was my boss. I actually liked her.”

“That doesn’t change what happened.”

“God Jack! Even after all this time you still don’t get it do you!” He pulled away from Jack and paced across the room. “Yvonne wasn’t evil, she wasn’t a bad woman. She had a job to do, and she thought she was doing the right thing. And when it got to critical point she actually listened the Doctor when he told her to back off. It wasn’t cruelty, it was ignorance. If you think people deserve to be executed for ignorance then you should have taken me out a long time ago.” 

“Ianto-”

“No, Jack. I’m not doing this now. I’m going to do some fucking work. You should think about doing the same thing for once.” 

Ianto turned on his head and stormed out of the room. As he walked away Jack saw him put a hand to his forehead, like he was forcing a thought from his head. Jack exhaled and leaned against the edge of the table. That certainly didn’t go very well. He was left with his own thoughts, with everything Ianto had said. And everything that had happened over the past few days, with Torchwood, with David, with himself. Sometimes he just wished it could all go away…


	4. Chapter 4

The hours went slowly as the team continued to research, they worked long into the night, almost in silence, apart from the quiet sharing of ideas and the click of the keyboard keys. Jack had locked himself away in his office after his argument with Ianto, storming past everyone in the main part of the hub, not even sparing them a look. Owen and Ianto had been sat on the sofa at the time, Ianto watched him go, uninterested. Coming onto 5 hours later, the whole team was starting to flag. Gwen had moved to the sofa and was making her way through a large stack of files. Ianto was next to her, he’d lost count of the amount of coffee’s he’d drank, but if the mugs on the small coffee table were anything to go by, it had well surpassed what was probably safe. He yawned. 

“God, has anyone made any progress?”

Tosh wheeled around in her chair, turning away from her computer. 

“Whoever is doing this has set up some pretty sophisticated security. Its taking awhile to break through it and find the origin point. Its close by though.”

Ianto scrubbed his hands down his face. 

“Its surprisingly difficult to get hold of the survivors. Most of them have changed the names and disappeared into a new life. I’ve been able to keep okay track of them through the years, but a few of them are proving more difficult. And the ones in UNIT are downright refusing to talk to be. I’ve been on hold with a UNIT director for over an hour waiting to get some information.” 

They all turned at the sound of a snore from across the room. Owen had fallen asleep at his desk. Tosh and Ianto shared a smile. 

“Back to it then…” Tosh wheeled her way back around and started to type again. 

Just then, for the first time in hours, Jack’s office door opened. They all looked to it, apart from Owen, who was still dribbling into his keyboard. Jack didn’t look tired, didn’t even look fazed, just lost. They could see it in his eyes. 

“Everyone, go home. Get a few hours sleep and be back here as early as you can. Its been a long day and you’ve all done good work.”

Jack patted Owen on the back to stir him, his head shot up from the desk and he immediately started typing. Jack laughed softly, although it seemed forced. 

“Go home.”

None of them needed telling twice, Owen, Tosh and Gwen were out the door before Jack could say another word. As always Ianto was the last one out, he didn’t even get out of his chair. 

“Ianto, I’m really too tired to have this argument with you again. Go home.”

Ianto stayed put. 

“I’m on hold with UNIT sir, I can’t hang up now. And I’ve had 8+ coffees in the past 3 hours so I’m really not very tired.”

Jack sighed and turned back towards his office, closing the door behind him. 

_

The following morning, Tosh was the first in, unsurprisingly. She marched in with a large travel mug and her laptop bag. 

“Hello?” She shouted into the hub. No reply. “Anyone in?”

When silence again was all she was greeted with, she shrugged, sat down at her computer and pulled up her usual programs, as well as the heat signatures program to determine if she was in fact the only one in. To her left there was a reading in Jack’s office, signifying he was probably still in bed. She zoomed out to show a bigger picture and saw a second signature in the lower levels of the hub. Specifically, the archives. Ianto. 

She had a feeling he probably hadn’t left the night before like the rest of them had, so with intentions of telling him to get some rest, she made her way down to the archives. Tosh rarely went down there, none of them really did. It was Ianto’s domain and they were all generally too scared to mess anything up. She followed the heat signature around a few corners and down a few corridors until she came to Ianto’s small desk used for cataloguing. What she saw made her smile softly. Ianto was passed out, head on his desk and surrounded by paperwork. She wasn’t at all surprised he hadn’t gone home, although she was a little taken back that she hadn’t stayed up in Jack’s office overnight, instead falling asleep by himself in the archives. 

She walked over to him and patted his shoulder lightly. 

“Ianto….”

She patted his back again when he didn’t wake up. She sighed. And thumped him on the back. His head shot up from the desk, confused and looking more like a terrified woodland creature than a 20-something man. He had a bit of paper stuck to his face, which he quickly brushed off. 

“Tosh?” Ianto asked, voice strained. “What time is it?”

Tosh checked her watch. 

“A little past 8:30. Did you sleep down here all night?”

Ianto rubbed his eyes. 

“I must have fallen asleep around 6. I just got through the unit, and they were able to give me some information about their canary wharf survivor employees. I have the list here somewhere.” He moved a few bits around on his desk and pulled out a sheet of paper with some barely legible notes across it. “Here. Mostly uninteresting to be honest. There was one detail though…” 

Tosh took the page off him and sat on the edge of his desk. She studied it as Ianto pointed on the page. 

“Interesting. What’s this name at the bottom?”

Ianto took the page again. 

“Yeah, So, Apparently he rang the Unit recruitment offices and tried to get a job a few months ago, kept coming back as well. But he wasn’t deemed healthy or sane enough to join. It’s a shame. I knew Cam. He worked on the floor above me.”

“What was he like?”

“Just a normal guy. We did the pub on a Friday night with the rest of the guys. We were never that close, but he had some boyfriend that lived here while we were in London so we talked about Cardiff a fair bit.”

“Did you see him much after the battle?”

“No…” Ianto took a deep, calming breath. “No, I didn’t really see any of them. Not initially anyway. I obviously came back to Cardiff after a few days sorting myself out. Most of them were sectioned and given a lot of help in those first few months. From what I heard later on, he pretty much disappeared, went travelling or something.”

“He must be back in the country then if he’s applying for jobs in UNIT.”

“Yeah maybe. Well the others within are UNIT are all model employees according to General Hayes. Apparently they’ve all adapted really well into working for another government entity. So I suppose that rules them out. Next step is following up on all of them in civilian life.”

They were quiet for a bit, until Ianto yawned. 

“I need a coffee.”

-

Jack was trying not to let everything that had happened over the past few days get to him. It was difficult. Between the mysterious signals, the unsolved mystery and the argument with Ianto, he really wasn’t sleeping. He found it a lot harder to get to sleep these days without that warm presence next to him, it was something he’d got used to having in the few months since his return from the doctor. Ianto was a steady constant in his life: reliable, accepting, strong. All the things a man like Jack needed. He just hoped he hadn’t screwed that up, he wished desperately that they would be able to work through this. 

Jack understood that this was a difficult case for Ianto. Its connection to his past at Canary Wharf made it difficult to stomach, Jack wanted to help him through it, but he felt his own feelings about Yvonne getting in the way. He never saw her the way Ianto clearly did, but then, they had had very different experiences with her. 

A knock on his office door brought Jack out of his head. The door opened and Ianto emerged with a cup of coffee and a file. Jack was still only half dressed, despite the hour, without his braces or collared button down he looked like an unfinished drawing. To most people it would have been a deeply unusual sight, not for Ianto though…

“I come baring coffee. And files.”

Jack looked up and smiled warmly, almost forgetting that they were supposed to be fighting. 

“My hero. For the coffee that is. Files should be banned this early in the morning.”

Ianto set the coffee down on the desk and placed the file next to it. He awkwardly hovered. 

“Try as I might, unfortunately there is still some paperwork that requires your eye, sir.”

Jack couldn’t help the smile that took over his face. He loved the way Ianto spoke. 

“What is this then?” Jack picked up the file and started leafing through it. “Anything to do with these signals?”

“Just some stuff from UNIT regarding their former Torchwood employees. Mostly standard.”

Jack bit his lip as he concentrated. Ianto studied his face.

“What’s this at the bottom?”

Ianto leaned forward to check the document. 

“Not sure how relevant that is, UNIT only mentioned it casually. They had a call from a Canary Wharf survivor a few months back, he was after a job. They rejected him.”

“That name….”

“What about it?

“I recognise it.”

Jack twisted himself in the chair and tapped at his keyboard for a few seconds. Ianto came round the desk to sit next to him and watch as he typed. 

“What are you doing?”

“Hoping I’m wrong….”

A red flag popped up on the computer and a small ‘ding’ sounded. Jack leaned back in his chair, clearly shocked. 

“What is that? Jack what’s going on?”

“He rang us.” Ianto stared at him. “He rang me. God…. He wanted a job, sounded really desperate, but I turned him down.”

“Jack! Why didn’t you tell me about this?”

Jack brought his hands to his face.

“Oh God…” This was muffled. “Cameron Davis…. Is David’s lost friend.”

“Jack. What’s going on?”

Jack’s voice suddenly got very quiet. 

“I was the last person he spoke to…”

Ianto stood up and backed against the wall.

“What did you do?” Jack stood as well and walked towards Ianto, who moved further away. “What did you do??”

“Ianto. I didn’t do anything…”  
?  
“Its Cam isn’t it. He’s doing this to get back at you for not giving him a job. Who is David”

“Ianto, you’re going to need to calm down. It’s gonna be okay. David is that reporter.”

“The one who’s been stalking you?”

“Yes. The last time I saw him he said his friend had gone missing, and he knew I had something to do with it because the day he went missing, he rang me. I didn’t know what he meant.”

“it’s Cam… He went missing after you rejected him…”

Ianto backed against the far wall in the office, his eyes filling with tears.

“What have you done, Jack…”

Before Jack could go to him, the lights suddenly shut off in the building. Jack looked out of the window and into the main hub, where he could just about make out Toshiko’s shape as he sat at her desk. He threw the door open. 

“What’s going on Tosh?” 

She was typing furiously. Owen, who had not long been at the hub, emerged from the Autopsy room. 

“Power cut?”

“Impossible.” Ianto came out of the office, his eyes were clearly red and his voice uneven. “We have back-up generators for the back-up generators. And the computers are still working.”

He sat himself at the computer next to tosh and started working. 

“He’s right. It’s just the lights.” Tosh punched in a code on her computer and the room filled with light again. “There, all fixed.”

Jack turned on the spot. 

“What was that all about then?”

Tosh’s worried voice caught Jack’s attention before he could think any further. 

“Jack…. We’re getting another reading, Our perfect average.”

“Where is it?” Jack was already grabbing his coat, Owen close behind. 

“Jack. It’s here. It’s right in the middle of the hub.”


End file.
